Stealing Candy

Stealing Candy

I awoke on a Wednesday morning in early January to the ringing of the Batphone, my unlisted private line. Only seven people have this phone number and I always answer it if I’m home. The time was ten thirty and the phone’s ring seemed louder than usual, probably because of the minimal amount of sleep I’d gotten at this point in the day, having gone to bed at six a.m. after a long night of drinking. It was my cousin Ron The Trucker, calling from the New Mexico/Arizona border with a problem.

“Uhff, hello,” I stated groggily into the receiver.

“Good morning there, cousin!” His tone was cheerful. “You awake yet? I have a proposition for you.”

“Uh… yes, I’m awake… sort of...” I pushed myself up to lean back against the wall behind me, reaching for the glass of water beside my bed, “What can I do for you, Ron?”

He proceeded to explain that he needed help transporting a load of freight across Arizona and California, illegally.

Compared to the life I once lived, I’m a sheep in my approach to the lines of the law these days. But despite many years now of playing along, I still recall the criminal life of my youth as if it were yesterday, and I miss it. A long time ago I concluded I was not bright enough to be a successful thief and, more so, that I would not be able to endure any extended period of incarceration, so I compromised my lifestyle in the name of survival and gave up the fun. Had I not, I think I’d be long dead by now.

Since then, I’ve managed to find other interests and another way of life, but I must admit today there is still no substitute for the adrenaline, the scheming, and the whole romanticism of defiance that breaking the rules once provided me. So any invitation I receive toward approaching that lost life is an intoxicating draw. Ron’s proposition rekindled an old fire.

Ninety percent of the highway freight business in this country is controlled by large capitalist corporations who employ proletarians to “drive company truck.” These workers are generally flat-assed, beer-bellied, blue-collar, card-carrying rednecks who pay truckstop hookers for sex and die of heart disease at age forty five. The other ten percent of the industry seems to be comprised of angry bourgeoisie who own their own rigs and thus their own businesses. Ron is one of these. In early 2004, he’s sixty four years old and a miserable son-of-a-bitch. The lines on his face and the piercing stare of his steely gray-blue eyes reveal a career of stress and frustration. He smokes two packs a day, consumes grease and caffeine for meals, and has lived a sedentary lifestyle for the past twenty years. He’s tall and sturdy, about six foot two, 230 pounds; without the stress and the nicotine he’d likely plump up to around 300. He can’t climb the stairs of a two story building without wheezing, and has more than one foot in the grave.

But he’s my cousin, and I happen to like him. To his credit, he has a work ethic greater than most third year med students, and there’s a well-functioning brain between his ears. A few years back, he realized he could maximize the value of his labor by purchasing a “wide load” trailer and hauling only high-dollar freight. For perspective, a normal rig has eighteen wheels; Ron’s has twenty six with the extra set of axles necessary for oversized loads. So his is one of those big trucks you see from time to time out on the interstate highway with pickup truck escorts ahead and behind, a little parade of banners, flags and flashing lights, driving slow.

Hauling this type of specialty freight requires permits, prearranged with phone calls, faxes, and lots of paperwork. The various state governments heavily regulate the business, and there are a lot of tees to cross and eyes to dot if you want to do it all legally. Ninety percent of the industry easily plays along. But the other ten incline toward forsaking permits from time to time in the name of efficiency and profit. Ron had no escorts for this trip, other than his cousin who didn’t have any flags or flashing lights, waving only the mental banner of his lost life reading “Stick it to The Man.”

Ron left Fort Worth, Texas, on Tuesday hauling a piece of heavy machinery destined for the Port of Los Angeles. He had permits for Texas and New Mexico. But Arizona and California are impossibly difficult in their standards for oversized loads, with stringent axle-to-pound ratios. The most Arizona will allow to pass through for three sets of axles (the size of Ron’s rig) is 115,000 pounds, and California is even stingier. Ron’s load weighed 129,000 pounds. The state border directly in front of him was the line between allowed and forbidden. He sat there impatiently on the morning of January 7, 2004, waiting to cross it.

Forty five minutes after being awakened by his phone call I was on Interstate Ten headed for New Mexico, and 270 miles after that I was shaking hands with my once-removed cousin in the parking lot of a truckstop. Good to see ya, let’s go scout some road.

Most states have managed to line their borders with weigh stations (or “scales” as truckers say); they occupy every highway entrance, and Arizona is no exception. A trucker can not just cruise into this province without being required to pull over, get weighed and have his permits examined. If he tries to ignore this mandate, he’ll be stopped by state troopers within a mile or two, cited for failing to stop, and escorted back to the scale.

The only hope of avoiding this regulatory obligation (other than traversing back-country dirt roads which do not lend themselves well to vehicles of such size and weight) is if the scale happens to be closed. This happens from time to time, somewhat at random, when some government employee calls in sick to work or gets drunk on the job and turns the sign off in the name of a nap, but it’s rare. The scale guarding the border to Arizona on I-10 does a lot of business and, despite the fact we’re talking about government workers, there’s scarcely a mass nap, so it never closes.

After a lunch of biscuits and gravy at the truckstop restaurant which featured prints of Tammy Wynette and Conway Twitty adorning its walls, Ron and I got into my Nissan and headed west into Arizona to scope out the scale and possible alternative routes.

We drove past the tyrannical scale and determined it wasn’t closed and wasn’t going to be any time soon. So we headed on up to the next exit and began searching for a way around.

Sixty miles of mostly dirt and gravel country back roads later, as darkness began to set upon us, my passenger concluded there was no way he could penetrate Arizona anywhere near I-10, so we headed south and eventually wound up on State Route Eighty which runs alongside the border for many miles, traversing the lower quarter of both states. It has no substantial exits before hitting a scale a few miles north of Douglas, Arizona, near the Old Mexico border. Around seven p.m. we drove up to that scale pessimistically, but observed a large handmade sign draped across the front windows of the station, “CLOSED.”

You damn skippy!

We went on ahead to scout the town of Douglas, population fourteen-thousand, and to find the exit for Highway 191, formulating our plan. Once found, I made a quick U-turn and headed back up the highway en route to Ron’s rig at the truckstop. Ninety minutes later, my criminal juices beginning to flow, we sat scheming in the parking lot next to his behemoth carrying 129,000 pounds of illegal freight. We discussed our plan and went about removing all the “WIDE LOAD” banners and alert flags from Ron’s rig.

It was a clear shot through the Arizona border as long as Highway Eighty’s scale remained closed, but there was a chance it might be open again by the time we got back there with the rig. Maybe the state employee(s) had just taken a break to go out and get some doughnuts, or a nap on the cot in the back. There was no way of knowing.

“Okay, how about this,” I suggested, “You pull over on the side of the road a few miles before the scale, I’ll go on ahead to scout it out, and come back to let you know whether or not it’s still closed.”

“Naw, I thought of that,” he responded, “and there’s no good place to pull over on that highway. No shoulder.”

“I was wondering about that...” I paused, “All right, let’s try this. A few miles before the station, I’ll speed up to get far out ahead of you. If I find the scale still closed, I’ll just pull over and park in front of it. But if it’s open, I’ll turn around and come back, and I’ll flash my brights at you on the highway.”

“Well... that sounds good... but... I’m not sure there’s any place I can turn the truck around within a mile of the scale. My rig don’t turn on a dime.”

“I noticed there was a driveway off to the left a bit before the scale. We should be able to get you turned around as long as I can get far enough ahead nearing the scale to get back up the highway to warn you if it happens to have reopened. Plus, with an extra vehicle, I can block traffic on the highway if it’s difficult turning your rig around.”

The look on Ron’s face at this proposal was quite skeptical. The idea seemed too optimistic. But he had been sitting around on the New Mexico border all day long and had no reason to believe there was going to be any better chance than this. “Let’s give it a try,” he conceded, with a bit of a sigh.

We discussed a few details: whether I should follow or lead, some time/distance calculations, and exactly when I should bolt out ahead to determine the scale status. I got into my Nissan and pulled up along side him as he fired up his enormous diesel engine. I shouted, “Remember, if I’m parked beside the scale, it’s still closed and you just cruise on by. If you see me come toward you flashing brights, it’s open. So you stop, and we’ll figure something else out.” At that moment, I briefly fantasized about pulling into the suddenly open scale after a future five minute discussion with Ron on the side of the road, and causing a big scene with all the government employees, maybe involving a fire of some sort, to create a distraction for Ron to risk passing by the station on the dark highway with his running lights off. But I didn’t let my mind wander too long, getting back to the business at hand, “I’m parked: scale closed! Flashing brights: scale open!”

We bolted for Arizona around ten. I swept out ahead, scanning the terrain surrounding the truckstop for cops with my headlights. Finding none, I slowed and pulled off to the side of the highway after a few hundred yards to let Ron pass by. We had decided it would be better for me to guard the rear until we got near the station. There were many nuances involved in that decision, but when you think about it, considering I was willing to distract a curious cop by almost any means necessary, it made a lot of sense. The distance at which I would follow would be approximately one sixth of a mile, so there would be little chance one of them could pull out in between us at the speed we were traveling. It also allowed a good amount of reaction time if somebody came up behind me. Maybe I could warn Ron somehow.

Driving down the road, the next hour elapsed with great alertness but not incident. As we approached the scale, I passed Ron and cranked my speed up to around ninety miles per hour for a good stretch. I was able to get pretty far out in front of him, probably over two miles ahead.

My Nissan flying faster than any reasonable speed, I roared up to the scale and braked heavily, pulling over in front of it, ready to whip a quick U-turn and floor it back up the highway if it had reopened. But it hadn’t. I looked across the pavement to find the same handmade sign draped across the station’s windows. It was still closed. Whew!

I peered into my rear view mirror to look for Ron and had to wait a few seconds before his headlights eclipsed the crest of the hill I had passed over a mile back. As soon as I saw him, I relaxed for a second, and then immediately wondered if I had conveyed the plan well enough. He’s supposed to see me parked here and cruise on by, right?

I glanced about in paranoia trying to assure myself that we had a good plan, then fixated on my rear view mirror, watching Ron descend down the highway toward my position for a moment, starting to feel a little better about the situation. I glanced around again.

And then I spotted the enemy.

There was a patrol car sitting off in the darkness, about a hundred feet ahead on a gravel road just beyond the parking area of the weigh station. Oh shit!

I threw my vehicle into gear and hit the throttle, charging toward the police cruiser previously hidden in the night. I drove right up to him and pulled my vehicle adjacent to his, my front to his rear, five feet away, and rolled down my window.

The cop had a canine in the back of his car (likely a German Shepherd) and it stared barking furiously. I began to speak, but my voice was drowned out by the dog. The officer put his hand up as if to say, “Hold it, mister!” getting out of his car. I gave him a curious but urgent expression while he shut his door and walked a few steps toward me, one hand at the ready.

“Hi... Uhh...” I hadn’t thought of what I was going to say, and had to come up with something quick. “Uh, what’s this town up ahead?”

“What?” he replied.

“That town up ahead,” I said, pointing down the highway, “What’s its name?”

He looked back over his shoulder in the direction of the glowing lights of the small city, and then back at me. “Douglas,” he stated.

I figured Ron must be almost upon us, and I had distracted this cop well enough to keep his eyes off the highway, but now I needed him to turn around and walk back to his car and give the dog a biscuit or something. “Okay, that’s where I’m headed,” I said (as if he cared), waved the back of my hand at him in dismissal, rolled my window back up and put the vehicle in reverse.

The cop turned around, walked back to his cruiser and got in.

As I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Ron had still not yet passed us, but was only a hundred feet from doing so. So I backed up and turned to the left, pulling my vehicle across the front of the patrol car, blocking his view of the highway.

Ron roared by as I cranked the wheel in the opposite direction, jammed the Nissan into first gear and punched the throttle. The tires spun and kicked up a big cloud of dust in front of the patrol car as I shot across the gravel and reentered the highway.

The cop did not follow.

Disaster averted, we cruised through Douglas and turned north onto AZ-191, Ron leading the way. A little over an hour later we arrived back at I-10, pulled over to the side of the on-ramp, and reinstated the banners and flags onto the rig. It was around midnight, and quite cold out there. “WOO HOO! That was sneaky!” Ron hooted in excitement.

“You want to stay at my place tonight?” I asked.

“We can’t afford to stand out here and talk. I need to get this thing back on the road right away. I’ll pull over at a truckstop up ahead.”

He pulled over seventy two miles later in Tucson and asked if I needed gas, but I didn’t, so we made for Casa Grande where we stopped at two thirty a.m. to discuss strategy at a truckstop restaurant. We sat down and Ron ordered coffee, iced tea for me. I was excited about our success in circumventing governmental tyranny, but he was all business. He immediately launched into explanation that California was going to be much more difficult to get through, that avoiding the numerous scales in and around Los Angeles was like navigating a mine field. Plus, many more cops there than in Arizona. Lots of stress.

I told him I’d help, and we made for the Valley of the Sun sixty miles away.

Ron spent the night at a truckstop near 67th Avenue and I-10 in Phoenix, twenty miles from my house. I got home around four a.m. and had to unwind for over an hour before I could get any sleep. I’d put 750 miles on the Nissan that day.

I woke up the next day (well, technically the same day) after four hours sleep and dragged around the house like a zombie for ninety minutes or so with the television on, trying to wake up. The movie Airplane! was showing on some cable channel, and Lloyd Bridges’ character was beginning his routine about picking the wrong week to quit some bad habit or another. I showered and woke up, drank a big glass of water, locked up the house, and drove down to where Ron sat. He had gotten the same minimal amount of sleep as I, but it was a nice day and we were in good spirits. He had also purchased a handheld CB for me so we wouldn’t need to pull over and stop for future communication. His truck was being washed, so he bought me lunch and we discussed our route, which was pretty basic for the first 262 miles, but then got complicated. We got out of town around one thirty and stopped for gas two hours later at Quartzsite, a little shithole of a town whose existence seems to be defined only by the intersection of AZ-95 and I-10. Like a thousand other small towns across the country, they advertise the “world’s largest flea market,” an attempt to get travelers to stop and leave a few bucks behind. This time of year Quartzsite is filled with nomads, retirees in their Winnebagos and wandering hippies. The local traffic put a damper on our moods, but that was nothing compared to what happened as soon as we got back on I-10.

At the busy truckstop I had to stand in line at the cash register for a full five minutes to purchase a bottle of water, a bag of potato chips and a candy bar. On the “trucker side” of the transient mecca Ron filled up with diesel fuel and purchased some beef jerky. We met in the parking lot and he told me to switch my CB from Channel Ten where we’d been communicating, over to Channel Nineteen where we might get an idea of what lie ahead from truckers heading east out of California. We got in our vehicles and left Quartzsite heading west.

At the bottom of the on-ramp sat the end of the line of cars backed up for thirteen miles due to construction on I-10. We merged onto the freeway with a velocity of about three miles per hour, and traffic was stop and go for the rest of the afternoon. The previous night, even with our masterful detouring and game of cat & mouse with the authorities, we’d traveled about as fast as normal highway commerce. But now we were suddenly stuck in traffic. I was leading the way and Ron trudged along slowly behind me. At times, all progress would cease and we’d just sit there for a full minute or so. At one point I got out of the car and stood in the middle of the freeway to take a photo of the ridiculous gridlock out in the middle of this barren wasteland. Other times, the lines would get moving fast enough to actually hit ten miles per hour. Woo hoo!

It took us three hours to traverse thirteen miles. I was hoping they’d give us a free T-shirt at the end.

At least with the CB in hand I had somebody with whom to converse for passing the time, but Ron was in a foul mood and didn’t have much to say. I couldn’t resist making jokes about our situation, but he didn’t laugh at any of them. Or if he did, he didn’t do so with the “talk” button of his CB depressed.

At one point, a couple girls in a Pontiac in the lane next to me rolled down their window to ask me if I knew where the next rest stop was. “Hold on a second,” I told them, and proceeded to ask Ron over the CB.

“Let’s see, cousin…” he replied, looking at his map, “Looks like it’s about ten miles down the road. Why? You gotta go?”

“No. Not me,” I replied, “The occupants of the car next to me want to know.”

“Women?” he asked.

“Yes, a blonde and a brunette. You want me to get their phone number for ya?” I responded, somewhat sarcastically.

“Very funny, cousin,” he said, reciprocating the sarcasm.

I relayed the information to the girls and they seemed very distressed that they’d have to cross their legs for another hour or more.

Their lane moved ahead and I spent the next ten minutes sitting next to a smelly cattle truck, much less preferable to the Pontiac and its occupants. I felt sorry both for the cattle and for the girls. But at least the bovines could expel their bowels whenever they wanted.

When we finally did reach the source of the delay, just after sunset, the highway construction workers were just then removing the pylons to open up both lanes. Thanks for nothing, guys. At that point I was able to ascertain, via the CB, that traffic was backed up for twenty five miles behind us. Made me feel tired.

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.” ~Airplane!

A few minutes later we crossed the border into California. I was a little worried about their Nazi checkpoint on the border (if you’re not familiar with it, California requires everybody to stop upon entering the state to guard against contamination, because they’re special), but Ron explained it wouldn’t be a problem, and it wasn’t. Also, we wouldn’t run across a scale for many miles. And he was right. (This of course contradicts what I stated earlier, that state borders are lined with them, but I guess California is funny that way.)

When we did near the scale, I again shot out ahead to report on its status, but we had already heard it was closed from other truckers over the horn. Which makes you wonder why Ron needed me at all. So I asked him exactly that.

He responded with three reasons. First, those scales can open up at any time, so relying upon a report you heard thirty minutes ago could get you into trouble, though that was rare. Second, you might occasionally get a false report about the scale being closed, whether it be from other truckers or, more likely, from a cop posing as a trucker. This of course is entrapment, but just try to prove it, sucker. Mostly, it’s your word against the cop. Even if you can prove it, via in-cab CB recorder, they’ll still confiscate your freight in the meantime, and you won’t get to deliver it. Somebody else will, but not you. Evidently, if you’re running illegal freight and you get caught, they’re going to screw you one way or another. Third, CB traffic can be very light at certain times of the day, and you simply might not be able to get a report about an upcoming scale.

So Ron assured me that it was helpful to have me running block out in front, not only for the scales, but also for spotting cops and, if necessary, causing a diversion. It was classic Smokey & the Bandit, minus the high speeds, the mustaches, the cowboy hats, the girl, the dog, and the country music. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t like that movie at all. But I did think about buying a big ass cowboy hat for the trip. Yee haw.

Anyway, the first California scale was closed as I passed by and reported same back to Ron. We proceeded on to Palm Springs without incident and stopped at yet another truckstop, my sixth in the past two days and one thousand miles. As far as I could tell, all truckstops are the same. There’s a huge parking lot to accommodate the rigs, a convenience store and a restaurant. Usually there’s a truckers’ lounge, showers, and laundry facilities. There are diesel pumps for the trucks on one side of the structure and gas pumps for cars on the other. It’s no different than any cinematic depiction of Americana, nine different newspaper stands out front which truckers don’t read, a pharmacy of over-the-counter caffeine pills which they buy, and an endless supply of microwavable burritos, toxic fumes and fluorescent light.

A few miles past Palm Springs was the next scale, so I took off from the truckers’ paradise to go check it out while Ron remained behind, parked off to the side. It turned out to be open, confirming the reports we had been hearing, so I turned around and headed back. We had to get off I-10 and somehow go around it.

Back at the truckstop, Ron had figured out a route all the way to the coast which avoided all the scales. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he said, tracing his finger along the proposed journey on the map laid out in front of us on the hood of my Nissan under the lights of the station. “Just take the next exit up here and get on Sixty Two north. Then past Yucca Valley we’ll take Two Forty Seven west to Lucerne Valley where it turns into Eighteen west. There are a couple dry lakes around that area. See, on the map here? I’m hoping the route should be relatively flat and without tight curves.”

The previous night heading into Tucson we had traversed a long steep hill on I-10 which had slowed Ron’s rig to a crawl - under forty miles per hour. The tractors which pull these loads produce massive torque and power; however, 129,000 pounds and a steep hill do not fit well together, especially if you’re illegal. Traveling slowly up a hill, you stand out like a sore thumb. If you’re on a road not sanctioned for heavy freight and you are driving slowly up a hill because of your heavy freight, and you pass a cop who happens to know the road is not sanctioned for weight that would cause you to drive as slowly as you are driving, and he’s awake, you’ve got fucking trouble.

So Ron’s apprehension about hills was understandable, as was his concern over tight curves. A vehicle with twenty six wheels makes very wide turns and has a tendency to cross dividing lines going around narrow curves, creating the potential for sideswiping an oncoming vehicle.

“Then we briefly get on I-15 south for a few miles,” he continued, still tracing the map with his grubby finger, “and then back onto Eighteen west until it turns into One Thirty Eight west, which we take to Fourteen south. We take that to I-5 south, and then get on One Ten south, and then we’re pretty much home free to the ocean...” He paused for a second and then asked with a bit of a chuckle, “Got it?” It was a confusing route.

“Yeah, I got it. Hold on a second. I gotta go buy a candy bar.”

At times, I have a pretty good memory, especially when it pertains to something detail oriented, and perhaps it helps if there’s criminal activity involved. For this occasion, I was merely an accomplice to the crime and didn’t bear anywhere near the risk as my cousin, but I was ready to create a diversion for the cops at any moment throughout the whole trip, and my mind raced at the possibilities and the strategy. Moreover, it was not as though I wasn’t personally risking anything. Accomplicenss aside, I could wind up in jail. I mulled this thought over as I stood in line waiting for the cashier to charge me eighty cents for an overpriced candy bar. At that moment, caught up in the theme of criminal behavior, I didn’t particularly feel like getting ripped off for some chocolate which I could have easily stuffed into my pocket and walked out with. The risk was minimal, and I probably should have stolen it to be consistent in the theme of our adventure. But I didn’t. I waited in line, paid for it and walked out the door. Ron was standing there with his map still laid out on the hood, looking like he wanted to explain the route a second time for clarification, but I didn’t give him the chance.

“Okay,” I said in monotone droll without looking down at his map, “so we just take sixty two north to two forty seven west to eighteen west to fifteen south to eighteen west to one thirty eight west to fourteen south to five south to one ten south to the coast...” I paused for a second, “Right?”

He looked at me, and back at the map for a second, so I repeated, “Right?” Then he folded and picked it up, nodded to himself and said, “Let’s go cuz.” It was about nine p.m.

From where we were at the time, if we had been able to stay on the ‘regular’ route, it would have taken us under two and a half hours to reach our final destination and the ocean, a distance of roughly 150 miles. But of course, we were illegal and couldn’t do that, so we had to tack on what we thought would be another fifty three miles, according to Ron’s map. So I figured maybe an extra hour for going out of the way a little.

HA!

As soon as we got onto Highway Sixty Two, we were greeted by a long hill. I was leading the way but Ron’s voice came over the CB asking me to drop back and protect the rear, so I did. He couldn’t go much faster than forty miles per hour, and cars were whizzing by us doing seventy or faster. I can see why he wanted me behind him, as I provided a buffer zone. With me back there and my headlights pointed at his trailer, the two of us were much more visible to vehicles approaching quickly from the rear, so they had more time to adjust and go around us. A lot safer for the traffic and for Ron, a lot less safe for me. And it eliminated my ability to scope ahead for cops, and this got me wondering what to do if one spotted him and decided to pull him over. So I asked him about it.

“Well, if it gets to that point,” he responded, “there won’t be a whole hell of a lot you can do about it.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah. If they get me, I’m pretty much screwed.”

“That’s not what I mean, Ron. I might be able to distract a cop away from you while he is attempting to pull you over. I can cut him off and swerve around and act drunk, or something like that. Get him to forget about you.”

“You’d get in trouble for that, cousin.”

“Yes, I know, I know… What’s it going to cost you if you get pulled over?”

“Well, in a worst case scenario, he could cite me and prevent me from moving another inch. Then I’d have to get somebody else to come get the load and I’d have to arrange all the permits to do it legally. That would take a lot of time. I might even get hauled off to jail. I’d have to pay a bunch of money in fines. California is pretty nasty about that. And I wouldn’t get to deliver the load, so I’d only get a portion of the fee. It could cost me up to five thousand bucks out of my own pocket.”

“And how much do you get if you deliver the load on time?” I asked.

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“So we’re talking about a difference of fifteen thousand dollars here,” I said. “On the other hand, the most they could get me for would be ‘willful reckless driving,’ which probably carries a fine of five hundred bucks, maybe less, and I might have to go to traffic school, or they’d tell me not to drive in California anymore, but so what! That’s my worst case scenario. A grain of sand compared to yours. Plus, I’d fight it in court if they cited me for ‘willful reckless’ and could probably get it dropped down to a slap on the wrist; maybe a hundred and fifty dollar fine. If they want to get real bitchy about it, I know a lawyer out here - old friend from Omaha – and I can sick him on them.”

“Uh, okay...” Ron said.

“But most likely the cop would think I’m drunk. He’d make me get out of the car and take a sobriety test. No problem there. This would give you time to get away. Then I’d just play dumb and get real apologetic; tell him I was trying to dig napkins out from under the seat like an idiot and clean the inside of the windshield while I was driving, or something. Once he found out I’m not drunk, he might just cite me for ‘negligent reckless,’ but maybe not even that. I’ve been pulled over a number of times in the last few years and not gotten a ticket. Seem to be able to talk my way out of them. But whatever the case, it would be minor compared to how bad you could get fucked.”

“Yeah well, if I get pulled over instead of you, they might let me go with a slap on the wrist too,” he responded, somewhat missing my point, “It all depends on the cop.”

“Are you willing to take that chance?” I asked.

“Uhh, I’d rather not… No.”

“Okay then, how about this. If I get pulled over saving your ass, you bail me out of jail tomorrow or Monday, should they haul me away. You pay for my ticket and any court costs, and you pay me the difference in my insurance premiums for however long the ticket remains on my driving record... No, better yet, you just give me a chunk of cash to accommodate that expense over the coming years. That would be simpler. Then it’s over and done with. How’s that sound?”

He hesitated for a few moments thinking about it.

“Come on, Ron. Do the math. Subtract a few hundred bucks from fifteen thousand.”

He hesitated a while longer and finally conceded, “Sounds good to me.”

At that point I realized we hadn’t made any plans for what to do if we somehow got separated, so I brought it up and we resolved that I should find a pay phone and call him on his cellular. No problem.

The road leveled off for a few miles and I hoped Ron’s hypothesis derived from dry lakes on the map would come true, but it did not. The road descended into a canyon, began to curve, and we suddenly found ourselves at the base of a mountain which the highway climbed. Here we go...

A half mile later Ron had slowed to thirty miles per hour. It was the steepest section of road we had seen yet, and it curved back and forth. Cars flew by us and I began to spend half my time staring into the rear view mirror, hoping one of them wouldn’t come flying around a bend and smash into my rear. We were fortunate it was a four lane highway. The CB went silent and I knew Ron was stressed.

I didn’t dare make a joke, though I thought of a couple.

This continued on for a few grueling miles until the road leveled out a bit and we were able to achieve a speed of forty five and sustain it for about five minutes. I kept thinking we’d hit the crest of this grade soon and suddenly everything would open up in front of us. I wasn’t sure how high we had climbed, but it’s not like we’re in the Himalayas here, is it? We must be near the top of the mountain by now.

Think again, sucker.

We rounded another bend and came across another steep section of road, but this grade was even worse than before. In less than a mile, the fastest Ron could travel was twenty miles per hour. It was nerve wracking.

It took several minutes to get up that hill, and then the road leveled out again. Eventually it descended, but we were in a mountainous area and we had to endure steep grades and curvy roads off and on over the next hour until we finally reached a high, flat plateau. At that point we had only traveled thirty five miles from our last stop in Palm Springs, and it looked as if we were in for a long night.

And it was a long night, but that first stretch outside of Palm Springs was the worst geography we would encounter. Our high plateau lasted forty miles and we were able to relax a little, getting back up to a reasonable velocity. Ron finally spoke up over the CB and began talking about the first time he visited California, forty years ago after his first divorce. Over the next hundred miles I had the “privilege” of hearing all about his travels, divorces, girlfriends, etc.

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinkin’.” ~Airplane!

There were a few hills on I-15, and a few more later on Highway Fourteen, but nothing that slowed us down too much. Finally, after crisscrossing the outskirts of Los Angeles for many miles, we reached I-5 and quietly rejoiced. The fifty miles we had ahead of us were all interstate with truck routes, or so we thought.

I was still traveling behind him when, five seconds after we exited I-5 onto I-110, we passed under a green highway sign and Ron asked me, “Did that sign say ‘no trucks’?”

“I didn’t see anything which stated that.” I replied.

“I thought I saw something, but I don’t know whether it said ‘no trucks’ or not.”

Suddenly some anonymous voice chimed in over the CB like a little elf trapped in this electronic box, a fellow trucker offering helpful advice, “Yeah, you can’t take One Ten south from I-5. It ain’t a truck route.”

Shit.

Ron immediately veered left onto a passing exit, going where he knew not. We headed up some road onto a ramp we thought would take us back to I-5. The end of the ramp forked off in two directions, neither of which went in the direction we needed to go. At this point, it would have been nice to stop and look at the map, but you can’t do that in a foreign city with 129,000 pounds of illegal freight. Pulling over on the shoulder is rolling the dice against the police, and taking an unknown exit may put you in the middle of some residential area, getting stuck where you cannot turn around. You stick to the highways.

Even if we wanted to chance pulling off on the shoulder, the one alongside us was too damn narrow for a wide load. In fact, the highway itself was too damn narrow for a wide load. It was a non truck route, three lanes each way and Ron’s rig took up the whole right lane and part of the middle lane. Somehow, we had gotten on to the Pasadena Freeway, not approved for heavy freight, heading northeast, the exact opposite direction we wanted to be traveling.

Ron was frantic on the CB, “Where in the fuck are we?!?!” We passed under a bridge. “Did you catch the height on that bridge?” he asked.

“No. I better get out in front and scope for an exit.”

“Good idea. But don’t get too far ahead. We can’t afford to get separated here... Fuck!”

I floored it and passed him up, came upon another bridge and announced the height, “That bridge is fifteen foot six.”

“Okay, good. If you see an exit that looks clear, take it and let me know if you see a place where we can pull off.”

“Check.” Suddenly I was passing under another bridge. “Fifteen even on that bridge. Okay here’s an exit. Nope! Too sharp a turn!” I looked back at Ron’s rig, half in the middle lane with cars veering out around to pass him. This is not good.

I didn’t know what to do other than check out exits and announce bridge heights, which was rather frantic in itself because they came along every goddamn half mile. “That exit is no good; too sharp again. The bridge is fourteen ten.”

I’d speed up under a bridge and floor it until I approached the next exit, then brake hard and peer up it to see if it looked passable, and none of them were, all the while announcing bridge heights, looking back and forth between my rear view mirror and the road, watching Ron who was fighting his own battle with cars flying by and trying to find the high spots under bridges and changing lanes to pass underneath.

Every once in a while, over the CB I’d hear, “FUCK!”

I’d say this was the high point of the whole trip.

The bridges varied in height anywhere from fourteen feet eight inches to fifteen six. This continued on for seven miles until, finally, I found an exit which looked as though it had potential. “Okay, this exit looks straight, so I’m taking it.”

No response.

I got to the top of the off ramp, “It looks clear up here; there might be a place we can pull over.”

No response.

And then I saw Ron drive past the on ramp below, right under the bridge of the road directly in front of me. “Hey!”

“Yeah, what?”

I hit the throttle, ran the red light in front of me, and crossed right back onto the on-ramp, flooring it. “Okay, you missed that exit. I’m coming in behind you now.”

“Oh, I didn’t hear you say to take it,” Ron replied.

The best I can figure is that I forgot to press the goddamn ‘talk’ button on the CB in my frenzy. “Yeah, okay, this is me passing you on the left.” I got out in front of him again. “Maybe the next exit will work.”

“Well it hardly matters now,” Ron replied, “The freeway’s coming to an end up here pretty soon.”

I was both relieved and terrified at that statement. I got out a quarter mile ahead again, and passed under one more bridge, which was the shortest one we had come across. “That bridge is fourteen foot six.”

I looked in the mirror and watched Ron brake hard to creep underneath it. I later found out the height of Ron’s load: fourteen feet, four inches!

I turned my head and looked back at the highway in front of me coming to an end as we approached an intersection with a red light. By this time, it was one thirty in the morning so there was very little traffic, but it quickly became evident, after a few blocks of stop and go at every intersection, that we were in downtown fucking Pasadena.

Shit.

Ron told me to look for any sign that would lead us back to a freeway. Duh.

The road we were on, Arroyo Parkway, lasted for a little over a mile. Near its end, I stopped at a red light and observed that a block ahead of me the road did not continue. This was a problem - a big problem - but it paled in comparison to what sat just across the intersection from me on the left side of the street.

I looked in the mirror and saw Ron rumbling up slowly behind me. “Ron, I think maybe we should take a right here.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s that road go?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied.

“Well then why should we... Oh!” he paused, seeing the same thing I saw ahead.

Across the intersection, huddled around on the left side of the road were four local police cruisers and about ten cops standing around them. “Yeah, I agree. Take a right. Take a right. Take a right! Now!” he said.

I turned my pickup as slowly and as quietly as I could, keeping my eyes on this police convention in the middle of the street. Ron followed. I drove forward a city block, up to another red light, and instructed Ron, “Pull up beside me. I want to see if any of them are following.” I was getting ready to start up with the drunk driving act, maybe squealing some tires to be sure to draw attention.

“Okay.” Ron said.

The light changed, and we drove ahead side by side, but no cops followed. Dumb city cops. After a couple blocks, Ron fell back in behind me. At the third intersection, I saw a sign for I-210. I informed Ron, and a minute later we were back on the freeway, each with about twenty percent more gray hair on our heads.

After a couple miles, we found a place to pull over on the side and park when I spotted two other rigs doing the same off to the right. I got out of my car and jogged back to Ron, cars racing by doing eighty a few feet from me at two in the morning. It was cold out there and the strong wind cut through my tense body and jarred my nervous bones.

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.” ~Airplane!

Ron looked at his map. We had come twelve miles out of our way in the wrong direction and were on a road we hadn’t planned to take during a time of day when we should have been sleeping. But I-605 was only another eight miles ahead, and it could get us to a road which would lead back to I-110 at a point farther south where trucks were allowed. “Follow me,” Ron said.

It took us another sixty miles, but without much trouble or difficulty. I noticed some sparks emanating from the right side of Ron’s trailer, near the ground. Truckers tie down their loads with heavy chains and I figured maybe one of them had come loose was dragging along the pavement. I told him about it and he said thanks, but didn’t bother to pull over to check it out. We made it to the Pacific Ocean an hour later.

The Port of Los Angeles was a wondrous sight. It’s enormous, featuring giant cranes extending over a hundred feet into the air. Heavily illuminated, late at night it looks like industrial machines have taken over the planet like something out of a post apocalyptic sci-fi movie. Thousands of tons of steel structures attached to massive cement docks which extend out into the ocean next to ships the size of skyscrapers laid on their sides. At the end of our journey, the whole area hazy and glowing with electric light, it looked like the gateway to an alternate universe. . It was awe inspiring. A cold shiver ran up my spine, and I finally relaxed.

We pulled over to check out the area and talk for a while. Ron confirmed my hypothesis, that the cause of the sparks was merely a chain which had come loose and was dragging along the highway, but it was largely undamaged.

We found the warehouse where the load was to be delivered, and Ron parked next to it. The time was three a.m., Friday.

There was no way either of us could sleep at that point, so we got in the Nissan and drove to a doughnut shop, the only place we could find open. We sat down with our pastries and immediately became goofy. Ron had a big grin on his leathery face.

“So, this is the job you’ve been bitching about all these years,” I said, “I don’t see what the big deal is... Piece of cake.”

“Yah, maybe I over dramatize it a bit. Guess I have to feel like there’s some excitement in my life.”

We laughed and smiled and made jokes for thirty minutes. At the end Ron told me, “Cousin, you’d make one hell of an escort, if you think you’d like that job.”

“Hmmm... You know, I’d really much rather hear that line from a female.”

“I don’t mean,” he started, but I cut him off in mid sentence, “I know, I know, Ron. Just shut up; you’re tired.” We laughed some more.

We got back to the warehouse parking lot just before four. Ron, of course, has a bed in his cab in which he sleeps all the time. He’s comfortable there.

I slept uncomfortably for three hours in the front seat of my Nissan.

Ron delivered the shipment to the buyer at eight that morning. My neck stiff as a board, I helped him unload it. Then we had breakfast at an old seafood restaurant in the midst of the industrial dock area of the Port of Los Angeles. We walked back over to the docks and meandered around a while looking at boats, cracking jokes in a stupor, half awake.

To celebrate, we parked his rig at a nearby truckstop in Long Beach, got in the Nissan and made for Newport Beach around noon, a ritzy area with lots of taverns and restaurants. Ron got us a room at the Balboa Peninsula Best Western around two, which cost him big bucks, and then began the festivities. We went to six different establishments over the next twelve hours. Ron spent the time attempting to pick up women, without success. I spent it trying to get drunk, with outstanding success.

Ron tried and tried all evening to score. But he’s not very good at it, for two reasons. First, he’s sixty four years old. Second, his career has subjected his ears to hours upon hours of high ambient noise level for years, and he’s practically deaf. If I have a conversation with him in a restaurant, I have to speak so loudly that everyone in the room can hear what I’m saying to him. No problem for me, but definitely one for his potential prey in a bar when he doesn’t bother to explain his handicap. Any attempt to pick up on a female is a one-way conversation where he smiles and nods in response because he can’t hear her, coming across as either a bumbling idiot or a happy drunk, neither of which seems a complete deterrent to women, but coupled with his age, he’s unlikely to get lucky. At the end of our night of celebration, all he had to keep him company was his drink. I found this rather amusing. He’s like a teenager with his attention span constantly directed toward women. I’ve known other individuals like that, here and there, and mostly I find them to be vacuous and boring, but Ron’s a good guy so I don’t mind too much if he tries to drag me into his world. I didn’t particularly like the bar-hopping, but it was his party so I kept my mouth shut. I enjoyed some good irony when a couple women began hitting on me after he tried (and failed) to pick them up. When he got the chance, he asked me to attempt to convince them to come back to the hotel with us.

But I just told him, “You better have a few more drinks Ron.” And so he did. He ended up getting completely hammered, drunker than I’d ever seen him. By the time we got back to the hotel, he wouldn’t have been deterred from sleep by ten supermodels dancing naked around his bed.

Twelve hours sleep in three days with high stress means I’m a fucking zombie. I slept like the dead that night, and it was wonderful.

We spent Saturday lounging around on the beach, people-watching, then drove back to Long Beach in mid afternoon, traveling leisurely along the Pacific Coast Highway, a non-truck route, in bliss. I dropped my partner in crime off at his rig and embarked for the Valley of the Sun around four. Ron got into his cab, crawled back into his bed, and passed out.

I listened to truckers on Channel Nineteen of the CB all the way home, even responded to a couple of their requests for reports on cops. It was fun. I got back here just after ten on Saturday night. It took me four days to recover from my four day trip.

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffin’ glue.”